New Coalition Rallies Against Human Cloning
After Advanced Cell Technology announcement, sharp criticism comes from all sides.
Todd Hertz, with reports from RNS | posted 12/20/2001
A new coalition of scientists, bioethicists, and religious leaders is calling for a complete ban on human cloning after a biotech firm in November announced it had cloned human embryos.
In defending its historic announcement, Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), a Massachusetts firm, said it will use cloned human embryos only for therapeutic research, not reproduction. The firm says cloning for reproduction should be banned because of "safety and ethical issues." None of ACT's clones survived beyond the six-cell stage.
Now opposition to human cloning comes even from outside the prolife community. "Our opposition to human cloning in no way diminishes our support for a woman's right to . …abortion services," Judy Norsigian, coauthor of Our Bodies, Ourselves, told Congress in June.
Lori Andrews of the Illino...